Photographer of Families, Small People and Delightful Places, Travel and Lifestyle Writer and Blogger, Lives in Newcastle, Loves the North, Often Accompanied By A Beagle Named Holly Bobbins

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Travel, Adventures and Flight Attendants

I love flying, I love aeroplanes, I love the feeling as you speed towards the end of the runway and whoosh you're off, your head is pinned back in your seat as you temporarily feel a tiny bit of the G-force and the next time you look out of the window you are in the sky and on your way to your very next adventure.

I've been lucky to travel quite a lot in the last few years, my adventures to France, Spain, Italy, Gran Canaria and Amsterdam have all been written about on this very blog, at the moment Abigail and I are in the planning stages of this year's summer holidays, I wanted to cruise, she wanted to go to one place for a week so we've settled on Amsterdam, there's just so much to see and do and I haven't stopped evangelising about how much I love it since we were there last May, this time I am resolute, our first museum has to be the Kattenkabinet which as you can probably work out from the title is a museum chronicling the history of cats in art and culture, they even have their own cats.

Looby and her daddy are going to Tenerife in the summer holidays, they fell in love with the Canary Islands back in 2013 when we all spent 2 weeks in Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria, it was one of those moments where the whole holiday felt like a swan song to our relationship and it was, in the end, the last holiday we had together but I still have the best memories of our brilliant family adventure, and of course seeing dolphins in the wild and a tropical whale on the horizon, a truly lifetime experience watching the happy dolphins leaping out of the water and alongside the boat, I will never forget that.

Last year, one of the main highlights of summer was my trip to Barcelona with Harriet, the first time I'd ever been on holiday with a best friend and I can't wait to do something similar again this year to Italy or France, who knows, I know though that there's just something magical about being on holiday with your very best friend, it's a shared experience with absolutely no pressure at all, we simply did the things we wanted to do from the ridiculous to the sublime, the Magic Fountains of Montjuic, the Jamón Experience and Tibidabo where my most favourite sunset ever happened, a magical time and a glorious expedition.

Let's not all forget my first solo cruising experience at the end of 2015 where I started to find myself again, I will always remember sitting at the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the tears rolling down my cheeks as I realised just what I'd done, I'd travelled through 4 countries on my own, from agoraphobic to world traveller, 4 flights in 5 days is not for the feint of heart but that brings me to my next point, each journey I have ever made has begun on an aeroplane, and it's been made more comfortable, pleasurable and relaxing by the wonderful work that the flight attendants do, it can't be the easiest job, I mean I can miss my mouth with a cup of coffee, I can't imagine having to pour 2 hundred cups whilst being thousands of miles up in the air and not spilling it over everyone! My friends at Opodo have shared a nifty infographic about the History of Flight Attendants, it's really very interesting so do go and take a look and then appreciate just what an amazing job they do, it's only because of them that we arrive at our destination ready to take on the world and have the most amazing adventures.

I hope I get to share many many more of mine in this coming year of travel for whilst it's dark and wintery at the moment, just around the corner are lighter, brighter days and summer adventures all over the globe.